As the economy continues to remain weak and budgets tighten for public libraries, here is a study that should encourage any community of the value of high speed internet access via their libraries:

Internet Use and Job Search (pdf)

In a nutshell, the rate of “discouragement” (giving up hope for finding work) is reduced by 50% when job seekers have high speed internet access, and is reduced by 30% when job seekers have access to dial-up internet.

This provides a justification for providing high speed access to the community, in that it will encourage not only a higher rate of employment, but also less desperation in those still seeking employment.

To take this one step further, I would suggest that providing training and support (perhaps through volunteers among job seekers) might improve a community’s results beyond the scope of the study.

found via LISNews, who found it via NPR

The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) has issued a new report titled Strategic Thinking Guide for Academic Librarians in the New Economy (pdf).

It joins the growing chorus of reports that indicate that we are in for a financially tight stretch in the near future.  As I mentioned earlier, everyone in libraries needs to think about what we do and how we do it, and find ways to be more efficient.

The greatest opportunities for most of us lies in the area of Open Source and Web 2.0.  By taking the time now to move from proprietary services and software to low- or no-cost self-hosted solutions, libraries can not only save money, but add functionality and features.

The critical aspect is to think incrementally… tackling a too-large project all at once invites stress and failure; adding or changing some specific functionality each month can mean that in one year you may have ten solid new applications which were implemented in a very cost-effective manner.

Read the report, and add their suggestions to your pool of ideas.

found via ResourceShelf

There it is, on CNN.com:  Hard Economic Times a Boon for Libraries.  Recognize that, oftentimes, the writer of a news article is not the same person who writes the headline for the article.  However, it does seem as though the article is suggesting that libraries are doing wonderfully because of the economic downturn.

Libraries are doing well, so far, because our funding is not directly affected by economic factors; our funding will be affected indirectly, yes sir.  Are you funded by property taxes?  Endowments?  Tuition?  All of these will suffer, one way or another, and we will see cuts.

Our saving grace is that we can see it coming… I refer to a prior post:  A Look Back, A Look Ahead.